Long Needles For Large Butts / More obesity means even syringes aren't long enough anymore. What the hell are we so hungry for?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Published
4:00 am PST, Wednesday, December 7, 2005

It's just one of those wicked telling signs, one of those sad little cultural punches that make you cringe and sigh even as you stifle a laugh and roll your eyes at the state of it all, as you read the one about how an increasing percentage of people -- mostly women but half of the men, too -- aren't receiving their proper dosage of medicine when given a shot in the rear by a nurse at the hospital because, well, their butts are just too damn big.

Which is to say, the needles are now too damn short. Too short to reach what remains of the gluteus in most increasingly obese butt-exploded people in America, and hence hospitals are now having to use longer and longer needles to penetrate all the fatty acreage in the average American rear and deliver the meds these people so desperately need to, you know, help lower their cholesterol and treat their diabetes and try to prevent the imminent heart disease that's coming upon them like a steam engine due to all the, uh, obesity.

It's just another telltale slap, much like those recurrent stories about how airline manufacturers are forced to increase the seating area in planes and charge double for passengers who take up two seats and every single airline is now burning a great deal more fuel to fly due to all the excess weight. Fly the friendly skies indeed, but only if we can get the plane in the air.

I know, it's not a simple problem. I know obesity is a terribly complicated issue, crosses myriad sociocultural lines, is more than merely too much unhealthy food coupled with too much laziness coupled with too much I'm-a-victim thinking coupled with lack of self-control coupled with lack of exercise coupled with lack of decent health education coupled with lousy upbringing coupled with sinister garbage-food corporate marketing coupled with increasingly sedentary TV-addicted lifestyles coupled with pain-avoidance mechanisms coupled with believing it's all up to the Big Pharmcos to merely invent a magic bullet to cure it all. Oh wait, check that, it's not more than that at all. That's exactly what it is.

But it is messy, and difficult to unpack all the sociocultural layers and the psychology -- and even the spirituality -- behind it. Say what you will about the typical causes of obesity and gluttony and lack of self-respect, but there is one question you have to keep returning to when it comes to bulking ourselves up to a degree that scares small animals and makes the floorboards shake: What, really, are we so hungry for?

What are we not getting in our lives that ridiculous amounts of excess food and lack of self-awareness are failing to mollify? Hell, just ask any spiritual healer or guru or naturopath and you hear the same thing: Obesity is, by and large, a reaction, a response to a spiritual crisis and a deep-seated energetic hole in the head/heart/soul.

It is the basic formula: We consume more crap, both comestible and technological, to try and make up for what we aren't getting, deeper down. We gorge to fill a void, to cover up the pain of abuse or neglect or even heartbreak; we neglect the self to avoid responsibility because responsibility is, well, hard -- and isn't that why we have war and Prozac and Jesus?

Is this an obvious idea? Pop Psychology 101? Doesn't matter. It's reekingly true, now more than ever.

Just look. We are living in a culture that thrives (OK, not thrives -- more like wallows) in war and governmental lies and acidic pseudo-Christian ideologies that most of us know, on a deeper level, are pure poison. We sanction gluttony, savage the environment, allow unrestricted growth at the expense of nature and perspective; we have corporate greed like a mantra, fiscal irresponsibility as a way of life, war and death like karmic emetics, sugar as our internal medicine, Pizza Hut as a family balm.

As goes the national agenda, so goes the populace. As goes the deterioration of meaning, so goes our need to bulk up, thicken our skins, add layers of blubbery armor to help add a tiny shred of comfort to protect against the slings and arrows of a maniac world we seem to understand less and less, all while maintaining our God-given sense of denial that we are, in fact, the ones in control of our lives.

It's true. We want nothing more than to give it up, to hand over control of our lives and our thinking and our deepest beliefs to the government, to drug companies, to priests and corporations and TV shows and a disappointed and distraught Jesus who, we hope, will tell us what the hell to think, how to behave, what the hell to put in our mouths, our bodies, our minds, our hearts and souls and pants. We gleefully shut down our intuition, or deeper knowing, because such intense cognition takes, you know, work. On the self. And man, do we ever hate that.

It is, simply put, a failed system. After all, true health ain't just about snorting less Cheez Whiz and doing more power yoga and shutting the hell up about which of your parents should shoulder the blame for your relationship woes. Health is a change in the way you think, the way you tread the world, the way you kiss and screw and lick and chew, the way you hold your space, hold your lover, let the spirit move and dance and evolve and how you laugh in the face of religious scowling and crass junk-food marketing and heartless neocon smirks.

Because truly, we are in a place now where evolution is scowled upon, increased awareness is discouraged and excess is our national birthright. What the hell did we expect? Lean, nimble and strong? Of course not. Now bend over and take this two-foot needle in your butt like a good American.

Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate and in the Datebook section of the SF Chronicle. To get on the e-mail list for this column, please click here and remove one article of clothing. Mark's column also has an RSS feed and an archive of past columns, which includes a tiny photo of Mark probably insufficient for you to recognize him in the street and give him gifts.

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